achieve, particularly as regards students who were at a distance and so more
difficult to get access to. In total 26 people were interviewed (10 students and
16 staff members). Most of the students interviewed were identified by the
tutors, and this was potentially an issue, and so we carried out a short online
survey, aiming to reach a larger number of students, in order to check whether
the views expressed by the students interviewed were representative of those
of the wider body of students. This survey collected responses from 95
students.
The quality assurance documentation was analysed in order to map out the quality
issues that were being captured by the procedures, and the extent to which these
were being effectively captured. The interviews were analysed in order to identify the
quality issues as described by the participants. The results obtained from the
analysis of the interviews were then compared with the results of the documentary
analysis in order to get a map of the issues mentioned by the interviewees that were
not covered in the quality assurance documentation. In order to carry out this
comparison, the documents and the interview transcriptions were coded using a list
of quality categories based on the theoretical aspects of quality assurance derived
from the literature.
These quality categories were created based on the examination of the main quality
assurance documentation that higher education institutions are required to consider
when applying their internal procedures, such as the Quality Assurance Agency’s
Code of Practice. The list of categories produced was organised in three main
aspects of quality: standards of outcomes, learning opportunities and quality
assurance procedures for enhancement. Each of these aspects was subsequently
subdivided into more detailed categories covering the different aspects of courses, its
different stages and their procedures for enhancement, generating in the end 21
detailed quality categories used to code and analyse the data collected. (for details
see Jara and Mellar, 2007).
5. Results and discussion
The comparative analysis showed that the main issues missing from the quality
assurance documentation that were mentioned by the interviewees were those
related to student participation and the support provided to the students, suggesting
that the quality assurance procedures were failing to gather sufficient information
from the students. This failure was due either to the inappropriateness of the quality
assurance procedures, or to the inadequate recording of their implementation, thus
pointing to the partial failure of the mechanisms for providing this feedback.
The case studies showed that the application of the quality assurance procedures for
collecting student feedback on these e-learning courses were being affected by three
of the four factors identified in the literature: disaggregated processes, distributed
teams and distance of students. The data also indicated that a novel factor - the
position that the e-learning courses had within the institutions - was also impacting
on the application of these procedures:
■ The e-learning courses in the study, although belonging to a range of universities,
shared in common a fairly ‘detached’ position within their institutions. The e-
learning courses were considered non-mainstream activities, the central
management of the universities failed to pay particular attention to them and